The Individuation of Zayn Malik: Growing Up Post-One Direction
One Direction is a monolith. The boys are easy to write about, and impossible to fully dissect: as the New York Times will tell you, they are the first post-modern boy band, largely an entity more than a musical act. Their power is fandom, the unrivaled ability to give off the illusion of access. For pop fans of a certain age, they are ever-present, but removed. Directioners feel that they know the young millionaires, and 1D wouldn't have it any other way...at least, they couldn't have it any other way. Zayn Malik didn't want it that way.
The group's only member of color had the most difficult time acclimating from the very beginning. The music One Direction was told to record originated from a pop-rock camp, and Malik preferred R&B. He was always relegated to the role of the "creative, artistic" one, a complicated title with a problematic, not-so-subtle othering message—by making him the "shy guy," he was made silent.
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